


shiver (where we'll go and where we've been)

by asterismal (asterisms)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 22:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17927345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterisms/pseuds/asterismal
Summary: “There’s something about you.”Their hands touch.“I know what you mean.” A breathless moment. Their fingers fold together. “It’s like I’ve known you forever. Since even before we met.”“Yes.” The other boy’s hold on him grows tighter. Painful. He doesn’t say anything. “Exactly.”“Maybe we were made for each other.”He waits for the other boy to laugh. He doesn’t.“Maybe we were.”Maybe he should say something.prompt fill for an anon on tumblr: Harrymort reincarnation au but with no magic pleaseeee???





	shiver (where we'll go and where we've been)

_“Do you ever feel like you’re missing something?”_

_“Missing something? Like what?”_

_“I don’t know.” A sullen silence. A sigh. “Like… Like there’s this whole other person you’re supposed to be, but you can’t reach them, no matter how hard you try.”_

_“Huh.”_

_“I know, I know. It’s weird-”_

_“It’s not.” Their eyes meet. Surprise melts into a shy sort of pleasure. “I feel it too.”_

 

It isn’t his alarm that wakes him.

Gasping for breath, Ajay stares up at a dark ceiling, one hand pressed to his chest as he does his best to remember where he is. A familiar stain in the corner looks back at him, and he bites back a groan as he rubs at his eyes. Finally, resigning himself to the fact that he’s thoroughly awake now, he fumbles for his phone cord and pulls.

He checks the time.

4:30

In the morning.

Great.

With a sigh, he drops his phone onto the mattress beside him.

What was it this time? He can barely remember.

Blue eyes.

A white stag.

A shadow. Many.

And the words… The single sentence that’s been haunting all his dreams lately. _You have your mother’s eyes._

It feels true until he remembers that it isn’t. His mother’s eyes are a hazel that catches gold in the light, while his are so dark they might as well be black. So it can’t be true. And yet, every night, he believes it, even if for just a moment.

He checks the time again.

4:32

God, he needs to sleep.

  

When it’s finally time for him to wake up, he sits up slowly, and he knows today is going to be a bad one. He has a quiz in third period. His hands feel like they belong on someone else.

His body is argumentative today, and the day hasn’t even started.

  

The time between officially getting out of bed and his walk to school is a blur. He remembers his mother’s hand against his cheek and her tired smile when he pressed a plate of food into her hand, but anything else escapes him.

She probably asked him if he was feeling alright.

He probably lied.

The monotony of his day is broken only by the introduction of a new student in fourth period.

When Olivia Davies introduces herself to him during break, calling him Tom and smiling in the way that has at least a third of they boys in their class tripping over themselves to please her on any given day, Ajay watches as he smiles coldly and brushes her off.

“Think he’s queer?” Noah asks, just as intrigued as he is by the sight of the most eligible bachelorette being rejected.

“Shut up,” Ajay says in reply.

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Noah says, as if that matters. “There’d be less competition, is all.”

“Right. Like you had any chance even before he showed up.”

And yet, as much as he doesn’t appreciate the delivery, he can see where Noah’s coming from. The new boy is decent looking, with pale eyes and dark hair that curls above his ears. He’s tall, too, Ajay notices absently. And his shoulders…

There’s something familiar in the way he holds himself. Something Ajay knows he’s seen before, though he couldn’t say where.

“What can I say,” Noah says, and his hold on that thought shatters. The leer is almost audible in his voice. “A man’s gotta dream. And, boy, do I dream.”

Ugh.

He shoves at Noah’s shoulder. Not expecting it, his friend falls to the floor with a squawk. Ajay doesn’t even try to hold back his laughter.

When he looks up from his friend’s plight, he’s caught in the new boy’s gaze.

He can feel his face heating at the curiosity he sees there. Not wanting to be rude, he smiles and turns away before he can embarrass himself. Luckily, Noah has untangled himself from the legs of his chair and is threatening loud and bloody revenge, so he has something to distract himself with.

  

_“There’s something about you.”_

_Their hands touch._

_“I know what you mean.” A breathless moment. Their fingers fold together. “It’s like I’ve known you forever. Since even before we met.”_

_“Yes.” The other boy’s hold on him grows tighter. Painful. He doesn’t say anything. “Exactly.”_

_“Maybe we were made for each other.”_

_He waits for the other boy to laugh. He doesn’t._

_“Maybe we were.”_

_Maybe he should say something._

  

So Thomas Bell is a bit of a bastard.

He learns this a few days later when Katie-from-second-period runs into him in the crowded hall, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Whoa.” He holds his arms out to catch her as she sways on her feet, “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

He and Katie aren’t friends, but they’re friendly, so when she breaks down into sobs as she tries to speak, he herds her toward a classroom he knows is empty and closes the door behind them as she drops to sit on the floor.

He glances at the many empty desks before slowly joining her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

Katie sniffs. Loudly.

“It’s Bell,” she says after a long enough pause that he’d resigned himself to missing class to sit in silence with a crying girl he barely knows. “He’s awful.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“He made Charlie cry and when I told him to leave him alone he- He-” She hides her face to her hands. “He told me to fuck off.”

That doesn’t seem so bad, Ajay thinks to himself. A little uncalled for, sure, but it could be worse.

“And then he told me that I’m ugly and shrill and that Olivia said she thought I looked fat at her party last weekend.”

Oh. That would explain it. For all that he and Katie aren’t close, they’re the only out students in their year, and her crush on Olivia is no secret to anyone who pays attention.

Apparently Thomas Bell pays attention.

  

_“Do you want to hear something strange?” he asks._

_“Always.”_

_A pause. A shiver of warning runs down his spine._

_“You’re eyes are red, when I dream.”_

_He doesn’t know why._

_The other boy just smiles._

 

The dreams are getting worse.

The new kid just keeps watching him.

 

_“We’re special, you know.”_

_“Isn’t everyone?”_

_“I mean it.” A press of lips against his forehead. “We’re different.”_

_“Alright, then.” He laughs. He probably shouldn’t. “How are we different?”_

_A pause. He’d almost call it heavy._

_“Our dreams. Do you ever think they mean something?”_

 

When he dreams, he hears laughter. Green light washes over him.

It wakes him every time.

 

_“Your name was Tom, wasn’t it.” It’s not a question. “Is that why you only go by Thomas?”_

_The other boy looks worried, just for a moment._

_“You remember?”_

_But that moment is enough._

_Why does he look worried?_

_“Not everything.” He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to look. “But I guess you were important.”_

 

Katie isn’t the only person to cry because of Thomas Bell.

If the rumors are to be believed, he slashed the tires of Dove’s car and gave Jacob a black eye for making fun of his accent. Ajay isn’t sure about the second one, as Jacob is well known for his brutish strength, but if it’s true, he supposes he can’t really blame the new boy.

Most of his peers would agree with him when he thinks that Jacob deserves to get punched more often.

And yet, for all of the rumors surrounding him, Bell has never been caught. By the time a month has come and gone, he’s got everyone but his fellow students convinced he can do no wrong. Surprising absolutely no one, there’s a significant number of students who don’t seem to care.

“It’s a shame,” Priya tells him over lunch one day. “All the pretty ones are either gay or evil.”

“Is that how the saying goes?” Ajay asks as he tears his gaze away from where it’s been focused on the line of Bell’s shoulders. Priya raises an eyebrow at him, but no one else at the table seems to have noticed his distraction.

Noah snickers but doesn’t look up from where he’s shoveling forkfuls of whatever meal his mum prepared for him this morning into his mouth.

“Lucia told Shravika who told Raj that Bell sabotaged her boyfriend’s make-up exam the other day,” Priya tells him. “He won’t be able to stay on the football team if he doesn’t get his grades up, and there’s no chance now.”

“How is that even possible?” Ajay asks. He tries to picture how one might sabotage a supervised test, but he can’t come up with anything.

Priya just shrugs.

“It’s simple,” Noah says. When Ajay and Priya turn to him, he grins. “He probably distracted the supervisor and messed with the guy’s answers. Everyone says he’s a genius, right? He probably schemes in his sleep.”

“I suppose,” Ajay says, his eyes drifting back toward the other boy and the adoring crowd seated around him, hanging on his every word.

Gay or evil, hm?

Bell smiles at the boy sitting beside him, and even from across the room, it’s a lovely sight.

Knowing Ajay’s luck, he’s probably both.

 

_“We knew each other.” He watches as the other boy’s smile grows tight. “Before, I mean.”_

_“Yes.” He sounds reluctant. “We did.”_

_“How did we know each other?”_

_The hand in his is cold._

_But his eyes are colder, and it’s almost enough to make him stop._

_“Answer me. Please.”_

_Almost._

 

The next time he catches Bell watching him, he doesn’t look away.

He doesn’t want to. Even if he wanted to, he isn’t sure he could.

He hasn’t slept a full night through in weeks, and his mum is getting worried. Everyone is getting worried.

Bell smiles at him from across the courtyard, and suddenly it’s as if he’s somewhere else, somewhere he’s never seen before. For a moment, the world slips out of reach, and names he’s never spoken spark across his tongue.

He swallows them down, and the moment passes.

It always passes.

This is wrong, his body tells him, but it doesn’t tell him why, and he’s gotten very good at ignoring his body these days.

His hand drifts to his forehead, rubbing at a pain that isn’t there, and he expects it to come away bloody.

But his hands are clean.

They’re always clean.

 

_“There’s something wrong with me.” The words like stones tumbling from his mouth. Awkward and too big for the space they’ve made. “My body isn’t big enough for us.”_

_“Us?” The other boy’s voice is sharp. “What do you mean, us?”_

_His eyes are sharper._

_“I don’t know.” His forehead isn’t bleeding, but it should be. “I’m more than I should be.”_

_“Do you think it’s-”_

_“No.”_

_He presses his hand to the other boy’s throat, counts the beats of a heart he knows as well as his own, and he knows its chambers are empty._

_Their blood isn’t the same, but it used to be._

_“I think I’ve always been this way.”_

 

When he finally meets Thomas Bell, it’s entirely by chance.

Class has just let out and he’s walking through the hall with his head down. He’s tired enough that he can barely keep his eyes open, let alone watch where he’s going.

For this reason, it’s no surprise when he feels someone knock into him. As he stumbles, he resigns himself to falling to the ground, already bracing himself for the shock of impact and the laughter that’s sure to follow.

But he doesn’t fall.

A pair of strong arms catches him, and he feels his heart stutter when he looks up to see the pale gaze of Thomas Bell looking back at him, his eyes crinkled in a smile.

“Hello,” Bell says, and Ajay thanks every deity his mother ever taught him that the greeting isn’t followed by any cheesy lines about falling.

“Hi,” Ajay says, only a little breathless, as he regains his footing. “Um. Sorry about that.”

“It’s no trouble.” If he didn’t know better, he’d think Bell looks almost satisfied. “Actually, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“We haven’t.” He takes a step back. Bell lets him, though his grip lingers. “My name’s Ajay.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ajay,” Bell says with a charming smile, and it’s almost enough to make him forget everything he’s heard about the other boy.

Almost.

“Please, call me Thomas.”

**Author's Note:**

> That's right, Tom Riddle has been reincarnated as Thomas. Why? Because a) it's what he deserves and b) the only thing that probably pisses him off more is being reincarnated as a muggle. Also I think it's hilarious. 
> 
> I honestly wasn't sure where to take this prompt, but the idea of reincarnation is one that's always intrigued me. I might return to it sometime if inspiration strikes.
> 
> find me at being-luminous on tumblr (links aren't working for me atm so i'll see about actually linking it later)


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